Apple on Tuesday announced iTunes 7, the most significant enhancement to the its music jukebox and online music and video store since it debuted in 2001. It also preview its much anticipated iTV set-top box / wireless video streaming device due out in the first quarter of 2007.

iTunes 7 delivers new features such as the new album and Cover Flow views of music, TV shows and movies, enabling users to quickly find titles in their library as well as casually browse through and re-discover titles they already own. In addition, the iTunes Store is now offering over 75 movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, that customers can purchase and download to watch on their computers and iPods, and soon on their flat screen televisions with Apple's upcoming $299 iTV* player.

Movies will become available on the iTunes Store the same day they are released on DVD, with new releases priced at $12.99 when pre-ordered and during their first week of availability, and $14.99 thereafter, and library titles available for just $9.99 every day.

"Here we go again! First music, then TV shows, and now movies," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "In less than one year we've grown from offering just five TV shows to offering over 220 TV shows, and we hope to do the same with movies. iTunes is selling over one million videos a week, and we hope to match this with movies in less than a year."

"ABC and Disney Channel were the first networks to offer television programming on iTunes, and we're once again breaking new ground as The Walt Disney Studios becomes the first to debut feature films on the iTunes platform," said Robert Iger, president and CEO, The Walt Disney Company. "Disney is committed to providing innovative ways for audiences to enjoy their favorite entertainment content, and our association with Apple is yet another example of how we continue to reach consumers on their terms, regardless the time, location or device."

The iTunes Store has quickly become the world's most popular video download store, selling over one million videos per week.It began selling TV shows with five shows from ABC/Disney less than a year ago, in October 2005, and rapidly expanded its library to over 220 television shows from over 40 networks today. The iTunes Store also features the world's largest catalog of online music with over 3.5 million songs and has sold a stunning 1.5 billion songs, making it the world's most popular digital music store.

The iTunes Store now features new releases and library titles from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, such as "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "Shakespeare in Love," "The Princess Diaries," "The Incredibles," "National Treasure," "Toy Story," "The Rock" and "The Rookie." Customers can purchase and download movies from iTunes the same day they become available on DVD, or pre-order upcoming movies which are automatically downloaded when they become available. Customers get the same one-click download experience for movies that they enjoy with music and TV shows.

With iTunes 7, all videos purchased from the iTunes Store are downloaded in near-DVD quality at a resolution of 640x480 (up to 480, depending on the aspect ratio), which is four times higher than before. Downloaded videos can be played on computers and iPods. iTunes 7 also includes new features to better organize and enjoy digital music and video, including expanded parental controls, an iTunes video playback window with on-screen controls, and the new Cover Flow view that lets you visually browse your entire video collection by cover artwork.

The iTunes Store now also offers downloads of popular video games for fifth generation iPods, including "Tetris," "Mahjong" and "Mini Golf" from Electronic Arts Inc.; "Pac-Man" from Namco Networks America Inc.; "Cubis 2" from FreshGames, LLC; "Bejeweled" and "Zuma" from PopCap Games, Inc.; "Texas Hold'em" and "Vortex" developed by Apple, all available beginning today for $4.99 each.

Pricing & Availability

iTunes 7 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Store and is available as a free download immediately from iTunes.com. Purchase and download of content from the iTunes Store for Mac or Windows requires a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase. Television shows and feature films are available in the US only, and video availability varies by country. Games are available for download in the 21 countries in which iTunes operates and play on the fifth generation iPod. New release feature films are $14.99 (US) each and other feature-length films are $9.99 (US) each, television shows are $1.99 (US) per episode, music videos and short films are $1.99 (US) each and games are $4.99 (US) each.

* iTV is the project's internal code name and will not be the final product name.

but seriously, the updates seem pretty decent, though not as awesome as I was hoping. It's interesting to note that Apple still says the iPod is 5G - this is only a minor update. Could the "real" iPod update be closer to the release of Zune???

I never thought Apple would ditch the iTunes Green Music Note for PURPLE again!

At any rate, iTV is a step in the right direction. What is missing is DVR and an small internal HD for recording the video.

I am a bit underwhelmed by iTMS videos at 640x480 -- that seems pretty poor quality to me...

The new iPod nanos are cool, but I'm thinking they are not as classy as the old iPod nano.

I was really hoping (but didn't expect it at all) for new Cinema Display because I am ordering my MacPro and Cinema display today. Boo Hoo, I know they will come out WWDC, but I really can't wait that long for my new comp.

Re 640x480 quality: that's just under DVD, and matches standard-definition TV. This is GREAT for TV shows. The movie thing is a step into a new area--which doesn't interest me now, but it's a start. That's all I expected from it. Just like how TV shows on iTunes first began, you have to start somewhere.

No its not. You are not watching the full 720x480 on your television. For one 720 is not all picture information. After signal processing 640 is about what you are realistically watching on broadcast television.

DVD is extremely highly compressed. Partly what makes DVD look so good is that broadcast television looks so bad. The other part is color correction and sharpening hide the lack of actual picture detail.

Well, in this day and age 640x480 4:3 is really not acceptable. It's fine as a middle option but there should be something better available. So many people are buying 1280x720 and 1920x1080 HDTV sets these days and there are a lot of TV shows broadcast in widescreen HD. At least offer a native widescreen DVD quality option. Sheesh. This isn't 2003. Get with the times Apple. I'm not paying $9.99 or more to watch a movie full screen. Do they even sell DVDs that way any more? Of course they still haven't introduced a widescreen video iPod so I guess it's a moot point anyway.

The new iPod nano and shuffle models look nice. Interesting to see the iTV will have HDMI and component video in light of the outdated 640x480 4:3 video resolution announced today. I don't know what to make of that. Knowing Apple it will be used only to watch Quicktime movie trailers.

I think that is due to it caching the album art to begin with, I assume its faster after it has cached the album art properly

Gapless playback FOR THE WIN YAY, and free album art is definitely a good bonus, thanks Apple!

Jan

I think I figured it out. My movie files where it doesn't normally have art, and iTunes puts the image of a few frames into the file. Those are the files that are slow to load a thumbnail in Cover Flow. My music/movies with images assigned to them seem to be cached better. go figure.

This day in age 90% of America is watching a broadcast standard that was invented 60 years ago.

NTSC is literally a 60 year old technology that for the most part has not changed. Newer technology as been tacked onto it. But the core technology is basically the same it was at the beginning of television.

The new iPod nano and shuffle models look nice. Interesting to see the iTV will have HDMI and component video in light of the outdated 640x480 4:3 video resolution announced today. I don't know what to make of that. Knowing Apple it will be used only to watch Quicktime movie trailers.

The movies come in widescreen format.

I agree that 480 is bad; it's close to silly. But their format is listed as widescreen.

Well, in this day and age 640x480 4:3 is really not acceptable. It's fine as a middle option but there should be something better available. So many people are buying 1280x720 and 1920x1080 HDTV sets these days and there are a lot of TV shows broadcast in widescreen HD. At least offer a native widescreen DVD quality option. Sheesh. This isn't 2003. Get with the times Apple. I'm not paying $9.99 or more to watch a movie full screen. Do they even sell DVDs that way any more? Of course they still haven't introduced a widescreen video iPod so I guess it's a moot point anyway.

The new iPod nano and shuffle models look nice. Interesting to see the iTV will have HDMI and component video in light of the outdated 640x480 4:3 video resolution announced today. I don't know what to make of that. Knowing Apple it will be used only to watch Quicktime movie trailers.

Less than 10% of people have sets that can display better than 640x480. That's not much. Even most Tv's can't display 640 x 480 because the quality of the set isn't high enough. If you are connected through your tuner, the best you can hope for, with a perfect tuner, is 332x480.

Nice new interface??????????????? Are you kidding? Why are the interface elements not aqua? What are these hideous new scroll bars? Why do they not respect my preferences to have double scroll arrows at both ends? What happened to the visualiser? What's happened to the search bar?

Apple seems to have gone all-out to make iTunes look completely unlike any other OS X application. It just doesn't feel right.

Other things, like proper separation of media into their own libraries, and gapless playback, are welcome.

640x480 is as large as anyone watched movies prior to the advent of HD Television Sets. I think this is pretty good, as DV Video standard is only 720x480. It certainly doesn't compare to some of the HD TV's coming out these days, but perhaps in another year, if it is updated once again to 1080x???. Then I think I might be interested in purchasing.

Really, though, I think buying movies is stupid (for me that is, not you). I don't like watching movies more than once, maybe twice. I would really love to see Apple adopt a rental and/or subscription program for movies. If they do, they will become my one and only source for movies (accept the occasional trip to the big screen for an especially worthy new release).

I really home that Morgan Freeman has his way and movie studios ditch the whole big screen distribution method someday and just deliver movies direct to the consumer to watch on their own home theater.

Nice new interface??????????????? Are you kidding? Why are the interface elements not aqua? What are these hideous new scroll bars? Why do they not respect my preferences to have double scroll arrows at both ends? What happened to the visualiser?

Apple seems to have gone all-out to make iTunes look completely unlike any other OS X application. It just doesn't feel right.

Other things, like proper separation of media into their own libraries, and gapless playback, are welcome.

Like the new interface actually (but I am on Windows so anything is better than the Windows XP theme!). However, I am a bit cheesed off that if you move the iTunes folder from the All Users Start Menu folder, the next launch of iTunes forces Windows Installer to recreate all the Desktop/Start Menu shortcuts again as well as make iTunesHelper.exe a startup program. You can only hide this folder, you cannot delete it.

Nice new interface??????????????? Are you kidding? Why are the interface elements not aqua? What are these hideous new scroll bars? Why do they not respect my preferences to have double scroll arrows at both ends? What happened to the visualiser? What's happened to the search bar?

Apple seems to have gone all-out to make iTunes look completely unlike any other OS X application. It just doesn't feel right.

Other things, like proper separation of media into their own libraries, and gapless playback, are welcome.

vizuliser ive said about, i think return the scroll bars to how they were, and return the the button bar thingys at the bottom and the top to how they were, all the other things can stay. apart from the ipod interface, that needs to be changed. me no like...

"i find that if you keep talkin', your mouth comes up with stuff..." Karl Pilkington

Like the new interface actually (but I am on Windows so anything is better than the Windows XP theme!). However, I am a bit cheesed off that if you move the iTunes folder from the All Users Start Menu folder, the next launch of iTunes forces Windows Installer to recreate all the Desktop/Start Menu shortcuts again as well as make iTunesHelper.exe a startup program. You can only hide this folder, you cannot delete it.

That is kind of lame, I'm sorry to hear that <puts hand on richie's shoulder and offers comfort> But come over here, let me show you something called "Tiger", it will make your whole life better.